Banksy's Nativity - a Christmas Day talk

Christmas at Holy Trinity was - yet again - an inspiring and encouraging event! 

Well attended Carol Services and Christingle Services were followed by Midnight Communion and then a joyful Christmas Morning all-age Communion service. 

Thanks be to God for the wonderful good news of God born as man - to live and to die for our salvation.

Below is the text of the talk I gave on Christmas morning (well, the Archbishop of Canterbury publishes his Christmas message, so...):

'Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to those on whom his favour rests'

Does the word PEACE describe your Christmas so far? Have you woken up each morning this week, thinking to yourself 'What a wonderfully peaceful season Christmas is!'?

Yet peace is a word we associate with Christmas. Maybe you’ve had Christmas cards like these? Or you’ve had a message that has said ‘Hope you have a peaceful Christmas’. (Won’t ask what you’d reply)

These words that we heard read in our Bible reading announce peace - Jesus, the prince of peace is born in a stable in Bethlehem, and the heavens cry ‘Glory…’

In the next few minutes we’re going to let the Bible tell us more about the Christmas promise of peace - real, lasting peace. And we’re going to let this unusual nativity scene by Banksy illustrate it.

This Nativity was revealed in a hotel in Bethlehem this week. It shows Mary, Joseph and Jesus in a typical scene – a bit like the shepherds might have seen when they ran down the hill and reached Bethlehem at night to see if what they had heard from the angels was true. 

But when we look at the whole picture, it’s not a typical nativity scene – it is set against a backdrop of a great dividing wall. Like the one that exists in Bethlehem today. Imposing grey slabs of concrete. A sad picture of broken relationships, and not peace, but hostility, division between people.

But notice that the concrete has been pierced – the dividing wall has been breached – a shell hole, or a bullet hole has broken through and left a shape – a star pointing us to the cross where Jesus will offer his life.

We don’t know anything about Banksy – we don’t know who he is – but he has understood something of the heart of the gospel that comes to us at Christmas. You see, Jesus, born in occupied Bethlehem, came into a troubled world, a world that was every bit as divided then as it is now. Every bit in need of peace as it is today. And that’s why the message of the angels is such good news.

‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests.’
Even heaven has not seen anything like this before - there is celebration in 'the highest heaven'!

What we see about God is that he has come to bring PEACE! Bible tells us that the reason the world is not at peace, is because you and I are not at peace with God. Because we’re not at peace with God we’re not at peace with one another. But Christmas brings God’s promise of peace.

Two ways:

Peace between people on earth and God.

There’s a kind of dividing wall between us and God – caused by our sinful nature – we can’t see it, but we can feel it.  God feels distant, or irrelevant to our lives. Maybe we even feel an anger, a resentment against God. As if he lives on the other side of a large dividing wall from us.

But the good news of Jesus is that God has come to restore our relationship –he’s come to make peace between us and heaven. The last verse of our reading read said:
'And at the end of eight days...he was called Jesus, the name given him by the angel before he was conceived in the womb'

The baby in Bethlehem was given the name Jesus – the name that the angel told Joseph to call him - Jesus means ‘God saves’ – he’s come to rescue us from a life of hostility to God, and eternity without God.

In this nativity, the star points us to the cross, where Jesus laid down his life for you and me. And when we respond to Jesus – to recognise our need of him to bring us back to God, then the Bible tells us this: 
‘Therefore we have peace with God through Jesus Christ.’ (R5) 

Jesus hasn’t just pierced the dividing wall between us and God, he’s broken it down completely. Might remember that at the moment Jesus died, the great curtain in the temple tore from top to bottom, opening up access to God to those who come to him through Jesus.

What a gift, and all made possible because this baby is God himself, come to bring peace. Come to make it possible for you and me to live in daily friendship with our Father in heaven.

That’s the first part of the good news of peace that Christmas brings: Jesus has come to bring us a new relationship with God – one that only he can bring – one of friendship, of peace with God.

 But this good news of peace doesn’t stop there:

Jesus has also come to bring peace between people on earth.  

Bethlehem, the place where Jesus was born, is also the place where Banksy chose to reveal his nativity – in the shadow of the huge wall that divides the city. Separates Palestinians from Jews –a vivid picture of how good we are at isolating ourselves, separating, dividing. Creating hostility rather than peace. Walls like this exist all around the world. Other walls are less visible, but they still divide.

We’ve seen it in our own nation in recent months – there has been a real sense of how easily a nation can divide, a society break apart…careless use of language, caricaturing the views of others and creating enemies of those who hold different opinions from us. Dangerous stuff.  You can’t take peace for granted – it has to be worked at.  And the Bible says that starts with those who God has already made peace with.

In Ephesians 2 we hear this great news: ‘For he himself is our peace, who has…destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility…’

What that passage tells us is that when you and I come to live for Jesus, then that friendship with God changes the way we see others. Followers of Jesus are brought into a new family, a new community who live outward facing lives – facing God and facing the world. What used to have power to divide us no longer does so. We no longer define ourselves or others by race, or background, or politics, but by the way God sees us. We’re brought into peace with God – we become ‘those on whom his favour rests’ - and then into peace with one another. The gospel of Peace changes us first, then changes the way we treat others.

And it’s all because of the birth of this baby in Bethlehem – the one who has come to bring peace.

Our nation will need peacemakers in 2020 as we move forward from a time of division. The world and our nation needs the church to speak about peace that can be found in Jesus. Let’s pray that Christians will be at the heart of peacemaking in local churches and in national government. Let’s pray that the good news of peace with God through Jesus will be heard in our nation, and will bring peace.

Or maybe it will be more local for yu in 2020 - perhaps your family or your workplace needs a peacemaker. Will you pray for God’s peace to be made known through you this year in your family, or your workplace? Where would you love to see peace break out in place of hostility? Who do you need to pray for in 2020.

I pray that you will enjoy a peaceful Christmas of some kind, but more than that you’ll know the real peace of God in 2020 and be an agent of his peace in our divided world.

 ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests.’